Thought Provoking?

I found this a very interesting article. Could this help any of us move forward? I think it helps me do so.

One thing I will take issue with is the word "mistake". Other than that I think this is quite thought provoking.

I insisted upon the same secrecy. Why did I feel so shamed that I could not talk to anyone? To this day no one, family or friend, knows and I intend to keep it that way. Maybe I don't want to be perceived a fool anymore than I already felt?

We talked the other night about how well we're doing. She, for so long, worried that I could never put it behind us. But now, since she has truly sought knowledge and acquired significant understanding, now she is afraid that she may not/can not forget, and worse, forgive herself. She expressed this as tears rolled down her face. It was spoken from her heart and from her soul. I never wanted her pain to be so pervasive but I did want the effort to understand the damage her choices caused. Now I think I can see why it is so hard for a WS to face. I think that subconciously it is known what the end of the line really is and it will hurt in ways unfathomable. To face the demon. I just cannot imagine how destructive to self this realization must be.

She has crossed the line from regret to true remorse and now I worry for her. To feel and understand what another is suffering, at your own hand, has to become such a heavy burdon. I am pleased by her efforts, unfortunately, now I feel the persecutor, the offender. I cannot imagine what this guilt, shame and self deprication must feel like. So very heavy. Now I wish that I could take it away. This is now my charge, to help her be whole.

Your thoughts?..........

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This was in this week’s newspaper - The Mail on Saturday......

" Dear Bel,

In the past two years my life has come crashing down. I'd been happily married for 30 years, so it came like a missile to be told by my husband that he'd had a relationship with someone he worked with.

She was going through a nasty marriage break-up and he got sucked in too deep and did something out of character. After the initial shock and devastation, we worked hard to get back to our old life.

There has been much heartache and much talk. We have always been totally open with each other. He has been racked with guilt but typically wants to move on and forget it ever happened.

The problem is that now the dust has settled, I feel as though I'm two different people. When this happened we told no one to protect our children, who have a very close relationship with their father.

Though they are grown-up, they would have been shattered to know the truth. I took the decision to shield them - and our extended families - as damage limitation.

I have tried all kinds of activities/classes/therapy to ease my inner torment. My friends think I'm still the same jolly, easy-going person who is simply having a hard time going through menopause.

But I'm not the same person. The other me feels empty and worthless.

I'm full of anger and my heart has turned to stone. There is still a lot of love for my husband, but although I can forgive, I can't forget.

I often feel my whole life has been pointless and want to pop a bubble and just disappear. The golden core that kept me going through bad times has fizzled out, and I'm desperate to get it back
and to feel that life is worth living again.

The strain for me is that no one but my husband knows I feel this way. He tries to help, but he doesn't appreciate the depth of my despair. I want to move on.

I keep busy but feel the odd one out with friends as they haven't had to cope with betrayal on such a scale. It's making me ill. I so want to feel like me. Will I ever feel truly happy again?"

Reply: " How many tales of transformation have you ever read?

The grubby girl becomes a princess; the ragged lad appears as knight-hero; the abused woman is changed into a swallow; the vain young man wastes away into a yellow flower - and so on.
Those who passed on the fairy tales and myths recognized the human truths at their heart.

Metamorphosis may happen, but such enormous change inevitably involves pain. Cinderella has to feel all hope is gone and weep in the ashes before her prince knocks on the door with the glass slipper. Only then is the happy ending possible.

Believe me, I have every sympathy for you. But there is always more than one way to look at a situation, so I want to encourage you towards mine.

Because this is the only way you will be able to pick up the threads of your life, and see how they are woven into a new pattern. The situation is making you ill because you are resisting the metamorphosis.

You are choosing to look at what has happened in a negative way, blocking the good which is most definitely there. I believe that all experiences carry messages within them, and our task is to uncover the lesson - yes - even in the face of our pain.

You say you are desperate to feel yourself again. But who is that self? Let me spell it out. There was the 'me' who existed - "very happily" - before the hurtful shock. She will never return, so help yourself by ceasing to expect that. Then there is the 'me' of afterwards - this the one you see in the mirror each day, the one you dislike. The first 'me' may have had all sorts of problems you are choosing to forget. The second 'me' may be wiser in a way you are choosing not to acknowledge.

So now your therapy is to discover the third 'me' - the lady who has moved (reluctantly, angrily) towards a greater knowledge of her husband and herself.

First, the most important thing to realize is that your feelings are entirely normal.

I was fascinated to notice how your language echoed a passage in a definitive book about counseling Post Traumatic Stress Disorder:

"People who have had a very extreme trauma can become very concerned about their numbness or emotional flatness - like a lemonade without the fizz. While the fizz will not return on its own, it will return gradually and often unexpectedly if you engage in increasing doses of activity. But unfortunately you will also feel in a bubble.

You will feel you just cannot connect with others, and that they cannot possibly understand if they have not been through trauma like you have... You must not blame yourself for the flatness and being in the bubble. You are not responsible for the problem, only for working on the solution." (Scott and Stradling, 1992)"

So let's start work.

As victims are encouraged to revisit the trauma, confront your worst imagining.
You're torturing yourself with the thought of their lovemaking. Because you can't forget, remembering has to be dealt with. So instead of being ambushed by your nightmare vision of the two of them in bed, you have to take control of that 'memory'.

Face up to the picture and consider that instead of them having perfect sex (the thought of which makes you feel totally inadequate) their bed-time was marred by stress, guilt and the knowledge that this was going nowhere. You're telling yourself one story (that the sex was great), but that's the wrong story.

There are two ways at looking at what happened. A) He betrayed me and thereby challenged everything I have ever believed in, leaving me with this terminal doubt and misery. B) He made a mistake but our relationship was so strong he did not leave, stayed to work it through, and proved that my core belief in our marriage was correct.

You know which one I believe to be true. How can I make you see it that way, too? You can't cope with this alone, bottling your feelings. (You say you've tried 'therapy' but that could have been a one- off Reiki session for all I know.) Don't you have a really close friend to confide in?

You've been protecting your husband's reputation, and the feelings of your children and extended family. What from? The knowledge that human beings are culpably weak, but can earn forgiveness?

I suggest that the secrecy was achieved at considerable cost to yourself - but was also to do with your own wounded pride. You are indirectly blaming your friends for failing to understand what you haven't told them about. For all you know, one of them might have experienced just such a betrayal, but like you is choosing to keep shtum. Break the silence and talk to somebody. Lord knows, we're all in this together.

If I lived next door, I'd be round with a bottle of wine before you could blink. And I'd say: "Look, Sarah, men and women make mistakes, but they can use them to learn and grow and live the rest of their lives with a deeper knowledge of themselves and each other."

Maybe the point of your life has been to realize that your husband loves you more than you realized, and that you are so, so, worthy of that love. "